Vigil
by coonskin
Summary: After everything, was this finally going to be the time when his luck ran out and she lost him?
1. Chapter 1

Wilma walked along the edge of the woods, enjoying this outing. The air was clear and fresh, birds were singing, and her favorite companion in the world walked just a few feet to one side. Yes, it had been too long since she had been on one of these exploration missions. Buck had talked her into it, saying that she needed a break from the Searcher and also that they could divide into two teams this way and explore twice as much ground, the two of them in one area, Hawk taking the shuttle on a few quadrants over after dropping them off.

She hadn't been able to refuse. She even hoped there might be something more than close friendship behind the invitation. He would be glad of the company, he said. It had been quite a while since the two of them had done anything together; her duties had been especially intense lately with two subsequent ambassador transport missions and all sorts of pomp and circumstance.

Buck looked over at her now and grinned. "See, I told you this was a good idea. You needed a break."

She couldn't quite give him the satisfaction of full agreement, even though she agreed. "It is nice here," she said. She edged over a little, seeing something on her left. The ground abruptly caved in, revealing a sinkhole about 25 feet deep, the bottom of the pit filled with gooey, black mud. "Ugh," she shuddered, imagining it down there.

Buck came over to inspect it. "That's natural, not created by some kind of people, but still, I'm glad we're on the top side. Looks sticky."

"Yes, it does." She took a few steps closer, though still a little distance back, and aimed her recorder, capturing an image of this. "Plenty of plant life and some birds, but otherwise, this planet seems to be uninhabited."

Buck started walking along the edge of the pit a little ways, working out size. Just when he was nearly 15 feet away from here, there came an abrupt snarl and a charge. Wilma saw the motion out of the corner of her eye and jumped, startled. In the next second, before she could even identify the charging animal, she felt the ground begin to crumble beneath her. Her quick movement had jolted loose a new piece of the edge. "Buck!" she screamed as she fell.

She landed in the bottom of the pit, right in the mud, which was indeed sticky. It probably cushioned her fall some, but she landed awkwardly, and she felt a sharp, searing pain shoot through her right ankle. It gave way, and she fell the rest of the way over. She struggled back to a sitting position. At least the mud wasn't quicksand and wasn't impossibly deep, but it was a good foot and a half thick, and the more she moved, the more plastered she got. She tried to push her way back to her feet, and her ankle refused to take her weight. It was hurting enough to bring involuntary tears to her eyes as waves of pain crashed over her. "Buck!"

The sounds from above started to penetrate her mind again. Snarling, battling, and finally a laser shot. Worry replaced petition. "Buck? Are you all right?"

After a few more moments, his head appeared over the edge above her. "Wilma! Are you hurt?"

"I've done something to my ankle. I can't put weight on it." She felt totally trapped and helpless down here in the mud. "Be careful of the edge. It's not stable. What about that animal? Did you get it?"

"Yes, whatever that was, I don't think he'll bother us again."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. He nibbled me a bit but nothing serious." He looked around, obviously looking for a 25-foot-long solution. "Hang on a minute, Wilma."

"It's not like I'm going anywhere," she grumbled. She was feeling more and more uncomfortable, not just the ankle but her pride, sitting down here in the mud. She couldn't even blame the animal; it hadn't touched her, aiming more for Buck all along. She should have remembered in that first moment of being startled how close to the edge she was and not jumped even closer. It was the added stress that had made the edge crumble. She definitely should have made a better landing than her sprawling arrival down below. She ought to know how to take a fall by now.

She heard another couple of laser shots at a distance, and then a few minutes later, with a scraping, a fairly thick tree branch appeared, tilted, and started to descend into the pit. The cut-off log, still seared at each end with laser fire, was barely long enough and made a near-vertical pole when it hit bottom. Wilma again tried to get up and again couldn't put weight on her ankle. "I'm not sure I can climb that with this ankle, Buck," she admitted.

"Hang on. I'm coming down." He started descending the branch, using side branches from the main as hand and foot holds whenever he could. Halfway down his journey, a side branch broke under his foot, and he toppled off himself and landed beside her. "Uff." He at least landed much more gracefully than she had, and he rolled over and picked himself up, now nearly as coated as she was. "Yes, it is sticky." He reached for her. "Now, then. Which ankle?"

"Right," she replied. His hands were infinitely careful as he probed it, but the examination ramped the pain up even more.

"Definitely a bad sprain. Hopefully it's not broken." He looked from her to the log. "Come on. Let's get up. Lean on me."

She hauled herself up with substantial help from him, and with her arm across his shoulders, they limped to the base of the branch. "We'll never be able climb it together," she objected.

"Sure we will. We just have to adjust the plan, that's all." His tone was bright, cheery, and reassuring. She tried to force herself to believe in him. Buck was at his best, after all, when things started going wrong.

He considered the tree, then shifted over in front of her. "Lock your hands around my neck. Carefully, please. I still have to breathe. Then I'll climb out with you on my back."

It seemed impossible to Wilma as she looked at the distant circle of sky above them. "You can't do that."

"Bad choice of words, Wilma. Don't you know by now never to say that to me? Come on. I can think of places I'd rather be."

She tried to scramble onto his back, but even with him bending over, she lost her balance, and they both toppled as he tried to save her. Once again, they hit the mud full length. Buck pushed himself up, wiping the sticky goop off his face. "You know, I am getting tired of this mud. Come on, Wilma. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

He moved over, crouching down, and she once again pulled herself onto his back. That time, she made it. With arms locked carefully around his neck, she waited. Buck wiped off his hands as best as he could on one of the few relatively unsoiled patches of his jacket. Then he reached up for the first side branch. "We'll be going slowly, because I'm going to be testing every one of these side branches gradually. I don't want another one to break and drop us back again."

She soon became aware that that wasn't the only reason he proceeded slowly. It was very difficult climbing nearly straight up with her full weight attached. There were also a couple of areas bare of side branches for a few feet where he simply had to climb the central trunk itself. She could feel his broad shoulders working, could hear his breathing. This was pushing him. Still, with nothing to offer herself, she tried to simply hold still and not disturb his balance any more than she already was.

Finally, after several minutes, they arrived at the top. "Can you scramble on over the edge?" Buck asked. "The branch is barely long enough for the pit; I wish I could have cut it another few feet longer, but it had a bad section just past this part. It was still the best log I could find. But there's not that much room for two people to climb over the very top locked together."

"I can make it." She could hardly refuse to try, not after his heroic effort on that climb. She gripped the edge carefully, remembering it crumbling, even though Buck had propped the tree branch in a different section from that which had given way earlier. Cautiously, letting her ankle dangle, she pulled herself up, and Buck gave her a push from behind. She heaved herself over the edge and lay there flat, coated in mud, hurting, and infinitely grateful to be out of that pit.

Buck scrambled on over the top himself and lay next to her for a minute, catching his breath. She held still, letting him recover; she knew that as soon as she moved, he would. Finally, he pushed himself up and looked over at her. "Whoof. I wouldn't like to do that regularly."

"Neither would I."

He reached out for her ankle, giving it an examination without the mud surrounding them this time, even though they both were still caked and filthy. "Yes, you did a good job on this. My mother always said that anything worth doing is worth doing well."

"I think your mother would have made exceptions." She sat up, still hurting and feeling like she wanted 100 showers. "Now what?"

"Now we call Hawk to come get us." He reached for his pocket, felt thoroughly, and then looked around. "There it is. My communicator must have been knocked out when that animal first hit me. He rolled me clear over." He stood and walked around the edge of the pit, picked it up, surveyed the broken instrument, and threw it down in disgust. "We'll have to use yours."

Wilma felt in her own pocket. Her expression gave the answer. Buck looked back down into the pit, into the thick mud. "It's down there, isn't it?"

"Must be. I guess it fell out when I landed and fell over. How are we ever going to find it down there in all that mud?"

"We aren't. We'll just head for the rendezvous point. Hawk is supposed to meet us in four hours, and hopefully, if those bird instincts are working today, he'll even be early. Come on." He helped her back up.

They limp-hobbled along as a 3-legged person. It was difficult, and the motion was making her ankle hurt worse. Wilma tried to keep going, making slow progress that was at least progress, but she was fighting back tears again.

"Here." Buck stopped and then turned. Reaching out, he swooped her into his arms. "This will be easier for you."

"But not for you. You already climbed that log with me, and I could tell how hard that was."

"Oh, I'm just counting this whole experience as my exercise for today. Keeps you nice and healthy to get a regular workout." He lengthened stride. "Besides, not only is this easier on your ankle, but we'll get there faster."

She gave up protesting. It felt good to be carried in his strong arms, even if the waves of pain were still making themselves known. Buck kept up a good pace now, but by the time they reached the rendezvous point, he was sweating, at least in what parts of him weren't covered with mud, and she could hear his breathing again. "I'm sorry, Buck," she apologized.

He set her down carefully against a rock. "It's not your fault. Blame that animal. He startled you."

"I still shouldn't have jumped like that so close to the edge. And I should have landed more in balance." She shuddered. "I feel awful coated in all this mud. I want a shower. And clean clothes."

"Yes, I think we could both use one. And these clothes might be hopeless. I doubt we could even Shout it out."

She didn't understand the reference but was too tired and in pain to question it. He reached out, stroking her cheek. "Hey. It will be all right."

"I know it's stupid, Buck, but the idea of going back onto the ship like this with everybody around and how far it is from the hanger deck to sick bay just bothers me." Her uniform was far more black goo than white, as was most exposed skin. She could feel the ick in her hair. He didn't look much better. No, she wasn't looking forward to the parade through the halls at all.

He stood up again, looking off to the left. "I've got an idea. Remember that warm spring we found this morning not too far away?"

She managed to follow that thought. "Yes. Yes, I do. Think we can wash up while we're waiting?"

"Long as the water's safe. My scanner fell out, too, but it's okay; it was just the communicator that got crushed. And the water is nicely warm, as is the weather, so we aren't likely to catch cold."

She started to attempt to stand, but he picked her up again and carried her the short distance. The water proved safe per the scanner, and he set her down in the shallow edge. "Here. Just lie back." He started washing her hair. She closed her eyes and relished the moment, even through the pain. He understood that it was her matted, dirty hair that had bothered her most of all, and he remedied it first. Once her hair was done, he washed off her face thoroughly, using his hands, and then started work on her body and the uniform. By the time he got down to the injured ankle, she was feeling much better, even if still hurting.

"Thank you, Buck. That's a big improvement."

"Yes. Now, it's my turn." He moved away deeper, plunging fully into the spring as if he were going swimming, then coming up shaking himself. He washed his own clothed self, top to bottom, then moved back over to her. "Feeling better?"

"Much. This even feels good on my ankle."

"I'm sure it does. Unfortunately, you don't need to stay in here too long. Cold is better for the first 48 hours, then switching to heat. Out you go." He carried her back out and then once again to the rendezvous point by the big rock. "There now. You still don't quite look your usual crisp self, and the uniform has a few tears, but at least you don't look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon anymore."

"Like the what?" She had to smile looking at him. He and his clothes were much cleaner now, but in addition to being totally wet, he also had a few tears in the cloth himself. She had no doubt that he pulled off the soaked and torn look better than she did, but she was feeling relieved enough to tease him a little. "Whatever the Creature from the Black Lagoon is, you looked like one yourself."

"I'm sure I did. That makes us a matched set." He sat down next to her, back to the rock. "How does the ankle feel now?"

"Still hurting." She closed her eyes. "I feel like such an idiot."

She heard him shift and then felt his hands, strong but gentle, on her leg. He picked it up and moved it, ramping up the pain a little, then propped it on his own outstretched legs, thus elevating it a little bit. She opened her eyes again. "That should help some at least with the swelling," he said. "I wish we had ice. Or cold water. On the other hand, as wet as we are, that might not be a good idea at the moment. We don't want to catch a chill." He released her leg and settled back against the rock again, slipping one arm around her shoulders. "You aren't an idiot, Wilma. Cut yourself some slack. That animal startled me, too."

"You weren't standing right on an unstable edge over a mud pit when he did. And you at least landed correctly when you did fall in."

"It's going to be all right," he replied. She settled against his side, enjoying the closeness even through the pain. She loved this man, had known it for quite a while, but every time she thought he might return her feelings, he dodged away again under a joke. Much as she respected and admired him, sometimes she wondered if he could truly be serious about a relationship. His long string of flings back on Earth had been painful to watch, even though all of them had seemed superficial even at the time.

On the other hand, there had been Jennifer. He had mentioned her that first day to Wilma, "a woman I cared about," though not by name. _A_ woman, singular. She alone had been the picture he took on his ship. When he encountered the fake Jennifer months later, it had rattled him like nothing else she had ever seen.

Maybe the woman of the week phenomenon in those first months had been partly a reaction, trying to distance himself from the pain of losing Jennifer, of losing everything. But she wished she knew how he truly felt about her. She sighed.

Buck gave her a squeeze. "What is it? Just the general day we're having?"

"Partly. And this ankle really does hurt." That was true.

"We'll be back on Searcher soon, and they'll give you something for it. I hope it's not broken. That was a nasty fall. Strange as it sounds, I think we should be grateful for the mud."

She shook her head vigorously. "I'm finding it hard to be grateful for the mud." He laughed and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

This was almost like a dream she had had last night, the two of them sitting alone together, her propped against his strong body. The pain and her ankle hadn't been part of the dream, nor had the fact that they were both wet through, but still, aside from the ankle, this was almost comfortable. The temperature was nicely warm, and his presence was reassuring. "What did you dream about last night?" she asked, suddenly curious.

He tilted his head, giving her an odd look, but he didn't ask where the question came from. "I had two dreams last night. Far as I remember, at least. The first one wasn't a dream as much as a memory. It was from back when I was a kid, right after I had had my tonsils taken out. My mother brought me ice cream and was sitting beside me, telling me everything would be better soon." His voice drifted off into wistfulness. Wilma, watching his eyes go distant, forgot to ask what ice cream was.

"You miss them, don't you?" she asked. "Your family and friends back then."

"Of course I miss them," he answered.

"And Jennifer," she added, then wished she could call the words back.

He answered promptly, though. "And Jennifer."

"I don't think I fully realized at first how hard it must have been losing everything and everybody you knew, Buck. You're so adaptable. I forgot sometimes the feelings that must have been behind the smile." He was silent. He didn't retreat physically, but he didn't answer, either. "Do you dream about them often?" she asked, pushing just a little further.

"Yes." It was a flat answer, nothing more added, and that time, she heard the beginnings of a wall in his voice, a clear request that she drop the subject.

She obligingly backed off. "You said you had two dreams last night. What was the second one?" she wondered.

He tightened up in a different way that time, definitely not a purely pleasant memory. "I . . ."

"You don't have to tell me," she said, giving him an out if he really wanted it. "I just was curious."

The silence extended between them for nearly a full minute. Then he sighed. "I dreamed about you."

"Me?" And that dream was a bad memory for him?

At that precise moment, they both heard the shuttle engines, and Hawk came sailing over the horizon, a good two and a half hours ahead of schedule. As glad as she was to see rescue, Wilma found herself wishing that their friend's instincts had been just five minutes more delayed.

Buck moved her ankle over and stood up, definitely seeming glad of the interruption. The shuttle landed, and Hawk emerged. "Buck! Wilma! You didn't answer the communicators, and . . ." Hawk registered the fact that they were both wet. "What happened to you? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine; Wilma's the one who needs attention." Buck helped her up. "She fell about 25 feet and hurt her ankle."

Hawk came up at once on the other side, and supported between the two men, Wilma limped onto the shuttle. Buck settled down next to her, letting Hawk be the one at the controls as they took off.

"How did you get wet?" Hawk asked. "Did she fall into a stream? And you, too?"

"The pit she wound up in was full of thick, sticky mud. By the time I helped her climb out, we were both pretty covered. So we washed off in a warm spring we had found this morning." Hawk nodded, understanding that.

"By the time you helped me climb out?" Wilma repeated his line in disbelief. "Buck, you were the one doing all the climbing there."

"You helped," he insisted. "You held still. You're the best partner I could ever want in the 25-foot log double scramble. " He gave her shoulder another squeeze, then moved past her to the copilot's seat, calling the Searcher and requesting a medical team on the hanger deck when they arrived.

From that point on, the afternoon blurred into a string of images for Wilma. The journey from the hanger deck to sick bay did indeed draw looks from everyone they passed, even if most of those looks were of concern. She thought she would be eternally grateful to Buck for getting rid of the mud that had coated her. Once she was at sick bay, Dr. Goodfellow gave a thorough examination of her ankle and heard a brief synopsis of the accident.

"A sprain," he announced after interpreting some scans.

"At least it's not broken," said Buck. He had stuck with her all the way.

"Yes, yes, although it will take a few days to start to feel better and take a few weeks to get back to normal." Dr. Goodfellow pulled out a syringe. "This is an anti-inflammatory and a painkiller, my dear. You can rest here tonight in sick bay, and tomorrow, I'm sure you'll feel more like yourself. Now, let's get some dry clothes for you. You need some, too, Buck," he added.

Wilma suddenly wanted to spend the night in her own cabin, not here in these impersonal surroundings. She wanted to begin to feel like Wilma again, even if injured, not like a patient. "Can't I just go back to my cabin, Doctor? I'm not hurt otherwise. And I'd really like to take a shower and sleep in my own bed tonight."

"Well, yes, I supposed we could do that. Of course, I want to check you tomorrow. You aren't hurt anywhere else, are you?"

"No. I landed on my feet, sort of. That was the problem. I should have tried to roll."

"All right, my dear. Now, let's see. I do want you to keep your weight off that ankle." Lieutenant Paulton had wrapped it in a supportive bandage, and now she appeared without request, holding a set of crutches. "Thank you, thank you. You're ahead of me as usual. Always have just what I want." Dr. Goodfellow held them out to her.

Wilma took them and then slowly, helped by Buck, slid off the bed and onto her good foot. Balancing carefully, she took a few steps. "I'll go with you to make sure you get settled in your cabin," Buck said. "Thank you, Hawk."

By the time they arrived at her quarters, her ankle was hurting more again from the walk. Buck opened the door for her, then parked her on the couch and carefully unwrapped her foot. "Thank you, Buck," she said. "I'll feel a lot better for a shower." She stood again and started heading for the bathroom.

"I'll wait here," he said. "In case you fall or something. And once you get out, I'll rewrap that foot."

The shower was paradise, though she followed Buck's recommendations earlier on the planet and didn't let her ankle stay in the hot water too long. Dressed in clean clothes and feeling halfway herself again, she limped back out. Buck was still here, and the contrast with herself struck her.

"You ought to go take a shower and get clean clothes yourself, Buck," she said as he finished wrapping her foot.

"You sure you're all right for a while?"

"I'm fine. Actually, I'm starting to get hungry. Could you pick up a few food discs and bring them here after you change clothes?"

He grinned. "Now you're sounding a little more like yourself. Be back in a few minutes."

He reappeared promptly, looking much better and less bedraggled himself, and they ate food discs together, which she knew was a sacrifice on his part. He hated them. Still, she didn't feel up to navigating the main crew lounge tonight.

He followed the thought. "I'll bring us breakfast here tomorrow. It might not be food discs for me, but you can have your bland tastelessness things if you want. That way, you won't have to go down to the lounge until you're a little more used to those crutches. Now." He reached for Dr. Goodfellow's syringe. "You are going to go to bed and sleep all night, and any dreams have to be pleasant ones. Understand?"

She wondered again about his second dream, but she didn't ask. She was indeed getting sleepy now that she wasn't hungry, and she felt absolutely worn out by the day. She climbed into her bed, and Buck stayed there with her like a guardian of the cabin until she fell asleep.

Wilma opened her eyes. A quick look at the chronometer led to a second disbelieving one. She had slept for a solid ten hours. She couldn't believe it.

She sat up, and her ankle protested even that motion. Gingerly running her hands over it, she took an assessment. Swelling and pain both definitely still present, though at least no worse since last night. Dr. Goodfellow had said it would take a few days to begin to really improve.

Buck. Her last memory was of him sitting next to her, talking softly to her, his hand on her arm. His voice had carried her off into rest. Of course he would have gone to his own cabin to bed at some point; he had to be as exhausted as she was after yesterday. She was still amazed that he had managed that climb with her as a deadweight handicap. Still, she was surprised that he hadn't shown back up yet. He had promised her breakfast, after all.

She got her shaky balance positioned with the crutches and limped over to the communications panel, calling his cabin. There was no response. So either he had left already and forgotten about her, totally out of character, or he was so soundly asleep that he didn't respond to her voice, also totally out of character.

Or he was on his way to her cabin now. She got dressed and waited five and then ten minutes. Nothing.

Feeling annoyed with him, even though she knew that was unreasonable, she limped out of the cabin. The road to his quarters seemed unusually long, and she still felt out of balance and awkward on these things. She was tempted to try walking normally, but her ankle was hurting even without weight.

Finally arriving at his quarters, she activated the door chime. No response. Getting tired of standing and feeling even more ruffled, she used her administrative override on the panel. The door opened obediently, and she came in.

He was here. All lights were off, but his presence unmistakably filled a room, even when he was asleep. She reached for the light panel, then hesitated. She would at least give him a more pleasant awakening than that, even if he should have been up and at her cabin an hour or two ago. She crutched toward his bunk, knowing the layout well enough and dodging the dim shapes of the furniture.

"Buck," she called. Nothing. She let a joking tone take over her voice. "I thought _I_ slept late this morning, but you're winning the prize. Come on, Buck, wake up." She reached out to grip his shoulder.

In the next moment, all teasing vanished, and she jumped sharply. He was _hot_ , burning hot, as hot as he had felt back when he had Cygnus fever. She shifted her hand from his shoulder up to his forehead. He was burning up. "Computer, lights!" she ordered urgently. The room lit obediently, and she got her first good look at him.

Buck's eyes were closed. Sweat stood out on his forehead, and his breathing was rapid and shallow. "Buck!" She shook him, still with no response, then limped as quickly as she could over to the com link. "This is Colonel Deering. We need a medical team in Captain Rogers' quarters at once."

With help summoned, she returned to his side. He seemed completely unconscious, and the fever was blazing. With icy fear, she remembered for the first time since their rescue the animal's attack from yesterday and Buck admitting, "He nibbled me a bit, but nothing serious." She had been too caught up in waves of pain from her own injury to return to that topic later during the long wait, but he hadn't mentioned it again either. His clothes once the mud had been washed off had been torn in a few places, but she hadn't seen blood and had put it down to his scramble into and out of the pit. Hers had been torn, too. Of course, any blood hidden beneath the mud was most likely washed off at the same time.

Trying to remember the location of the rips, she started out feeling along his left arm and quickly found the spot that was even hotter than the rest of him. She rolled his sleeve up. It looked horrible. Teeth marks were filled with pus, and red streaks ran out from the bite up his arm toward the shoulder.

"Buck!" She shook him again, getting almost violent with it. There was absolutely no response.


	2. Chapter 2

This time, Wilma barely noticed anyone the medical team passed in the halls on the way to sick bay. She only wished the journey to go faster. She fell behind, of course, even at her best speed on her ankle, and by the time she arrived, Buck was already the center of a flurry of activity. He was examined - he had several bruises, too, a couple of them deep ones - and hooked up to monitors and the IV in near record time. The bite on his forearm was also cleaned out and treated locally; oddly, it really was a shallow bite and hadn't broken the skin by much. Whatever had made it didn't have the sharpest teeth. Shallow or not, it definitely was the sole source of the problem; his other bangs and bruises weren't infected.

Wilma stood back, trying to stay out of the way but unable to retreat too far. Dr. Goodfellow drew a vial of blood for tests, and she couldn't help noticing that Buck didn't react at all, not even to the needle. If not for his accelerated breathing, he might have looked dead.

Dr. Goodfellow headed for the lab to put the blood in the machine for testing. Hawk, who had appeared from somewhere, came up beside Wilma and took her elbow, providing a little more support. "You should sit down," he admonished.

"I have to be here," she stated firmly.

Dr. Goodfellow, reentering, heard this exchange. "Yes, yes, my dear, you must sit down. We can find a chair and get it close to him." Paulton turned unasked to go look for one. "Also, Colonel, are you absolutely sure you're feeling well yourself? Did you have any injuries that broke the skin, even if shallow?"

"I'm fine. It's just my ankle. I took a shower last night; I would have noticed anything." Annoyance pushed in as a low undercurrent to worry. " _He_ took a shower last night, too. And he knew he got bitten."

"It could not have been infected at that point," Hawk said firmly. "Not even starting to look bad. He's stubborn, but he is not stupid. He would have come for treatment if he had thought it needed it."

"And he never told anyone at all he was hurt, which he is, and not just the bite," Dr. Goodfellow put in. "My dear boy," he said, addressing Buck, "we are going to have to discuss that with you when you are more up to it."

"He told me," Wilma replied. The tech reentered with a chair at that point and put it on the far side of Buck's bed but right next to it, moving over a few of the machines. Assisted by Hawk, she sat down with a grateful sigh. She hadn't registered how much her leg was hurting.

"He told you?" Hawk asked.

She nodded. "Right at the beginning of everything yesterday. It sounded like they fought for a minute before he shot the animal. I asked him if he was all right, and he admitted that the animal had bitten him. And then he got involved with getting me out of that pit and everything after that, and he never brought it up again, and I never asked him for more details. But he _did_ tell me." She shook her head. "I should have _made_ him get checked out himself last night. I totally forgot about it." She reached out to put a hand on Buck's uninjured arm next to her, and she jumped. Even knowing he was very sick, the fever was startling.

Dr. Goodfellow reached out and put his hand on her forehead, judging her own temperature. "I'm fine," she repeated.

"Buck obviously thought _he_ was fine," Hawk pointed out.

"How high is his fever?" she asked Dr. Goodfellow.

"Scale 13.4," he replied. She flinched. That was even higher than he had had with Cygnus fever. "This is too fast," the elderly doctor mused. "Hawk is right; it could not have been even starting to look infected last night. He would have come for treatment."

"He was with me up until I fell asleep, and I'm positive he didn't have a fever then. I would have noticed, even if he didn't." He had been holding her hand, sitting beside her bed, much as she was now with him. Even distracted by the pain in her ankle, she surely couldn't have missed that.

"To go from nothing to this severe an infection in just one night is unusually rapid progression," Dr. Goodfellow repeated. "Hopefully the blood work will tell us more, but whatever microbes are involved here, they must be quite vicious ones. It's strange; the bite really wasn't that severe. Of course, we have no way of knowing what germs the creature had in its mouth."

They were silent for a moment, watching their friend, and the answer struck all three of them simultaneously. "The mud," Hawk and Wilma said in unison just as Dr. Goodfellow commented, "I wonder if that mud had some sort of organisms in it which got into the bite."

If it had been possible for her to feel worse, Wilma would have. "It definitely felt like it had all sorts of slimy things in it. It was awful. Thick and sticky and totally black." And Buck had only been in the mud in the first place rescuing her.

Dr. Goodfellow was thinking. "You said you both got thoroughly coated with it?"

"Yes. I fell in in the first place, and Buck fell from about halfway down when a side branch on his log broke. We flipped over again and went all the way down into it when I was trying to climb onto his back. Most of our bodies were absolutely plastered. Certainly his left arm was."

"And how long was it until you washed the mud off?" the doctor asked.

Wilma tried to think through it. "I'm not sure. He climbed the log. That seemed to take forever; I thought at the time that he was going very slowly." Realization struck her, and she tightened up her grip on his hand. "He climbed that log, 25 feet, with me on his back as a dead weight and him hauling both of us up, and he did it with a hurt arm and all those other bruises. No wonder he was having trouble with it."

Hawk looked at his friend with respect. "That was a remarkable feat."

"Yes, it was," Dr. Goodfellow agreed. "And then you returned to the rendezvous site, you said. You couldn't have been walking very quickly with your ankle. How far was it?"

"Hard to say; we weren't going direct or in a hurry when we came the other way in the morning; we were exploring then. We were taking our time, too, looking at things and talking some. Going back, I was hurting too much to judge. I'm sure he did go straighter than the way we had come. Maybe another 30 minutes? I wasn't walking, though, not except for the first part. Buck carried me. He was trying to get there quickly; I could tell." Again, with a hurt arm. He had carried her without complaint, never saying a word, and she had to admit to herself that she had noticed even yesterday that that, too, was an effort for him. He had been somewhat out of breath by the time they arrived. She hadn't even realized the handicap he had been working under. She squeezed his hand even tighter, wishing for some pressure in return and also, like Dr. Goodfellow, wishing he were awake just so she could chew him out for some of his decisions and actions yesterday. "Once we reached the rendezvous point, we only were there for a few minutes before I was complaining about the mud, and he remembered the spring. He carried me there, too, but it wasn't far away."

"Of course, the water could also have been a source of infection," Hawk said.

"No, Buck scanned the water first." She sighed. "He never scanned the mud. He was just trying to get me out."

Dr. Goodfellow was putting it together. "So say at least an hour taken up with climbing out and returning that he basically had his arm packed in that mud. And during most of that time, he was exerting himself, and his circulation would have been up?"

Wilma nodded glumly. If there were a better recipe for infection, she couldn't think of one right now.

"That must be it." The doctor turned to Hawk. "It would be very helpful if I had a sample of that mud to analyze."

Hawk was glad of the chance to actually do something. "I will return to the planet at once. I will also get a sample of the water, just in case. I think I saw the spring with the shuttle when I was flying in, but I'll need directions to the pit, Wilma."

She tried her best to remember their route in the morning. She wasn't too trusting of her observations on their return; Buck had obviously been using his well-developed sense of direction there. "You can't mistake it, Hawk," she finished. "That log Buck cut is still resting in it."

"I will try using the shuttle along the route from the rendezvous point. That's faster than walking."

"The animal would be helpful, too, if there is anything left of it after Buck shot it," Dr. Goodfellow added.

Hawk nodded, already on his way.

Wilma sighed. It was just her and Dr. Goodfellow - and their unconscious friend - left in the room for the moment. Paulton had gone to check on the blood tests. "I can't believe this. It was all my fault. All of it. And yesterday, I even _thought_ he was having a hard time physically with some of that, and that's after he admitted to me that he got bitten. But I never put it together, and I never asked."

"He never mentioned it himself after that first comment to you," Dr. Goodfellow reminded her.

"He was too busy being worried about me." She looked at Buck's still face. "What do you think, Doctor?"

"He's a very sick man, no doubt about that. But we must remember that he had had no treatment up at all until a short while ago, and now, he is receiving care. Hopefully the medicines will start to work soon. In addition to something for the fever, I've already started him on two out of the three best broad-spectrum antibiotics we have while we're waiting for cultures."

"Why not use all three of the three best?" Wilma asked.

"He can't take the third one. He reacts badly to it."

"Oh." She knew that his 20th-century body was slightly different chemically. It had always made him an extra challenge to treat.

Dr. Goodfellow patted her arm. "Don't worry, my dear. Just sit here with him. He might well know you're here; that could help him. We'll do everything we can, and he's strong. Now, I'll go check on those first lab tests." He left the room, leaving the two of them alone.

Wilma looked at Buck. "Buck," she started, "you've got to get better. Because I have to have the chance to talk about yesterday with you. You should have said something, Buck. More than you did, I mean. And I should have noticed more than I did." She blinked back tears. "Don't you dare die, Buck Rogers. If you do, I'll blame myself for it, and you wouldn't want me to have to live with that, would you?"

He didn't respond. She tightened her grip on his hand as if she could physically hold him with her. She sat there barely aware of her ankle now, only thinking that her careless accident might wind up costing Buck his life.


	3. Chapter 3

A little while later, Paulton reentered the room carrying a few cold packs. She moved around the bed to Wilma and began examining her ankle. "I'm fine," Wilma repeated, still watching Buck.

"You two make a great pair, you know it?" Paulton retorted. She propped the ankle on a lower shelf of a nearby machine and packed the cold packs around it after activating them. "Leave those on in cycles as long as you can stand it. It will help with the swelling." She pulled out her scanner and gave it a pass over Wilma first. "You don't have a fever at all, but if you do start to feel sick, tell somebody. We still aren't sure exactly what we're dealing with here, and it could be picked up in other slower ways besides through a bite. The fact that you're behind him doesn't necessarily mean that you won't get it."

"I'll mention it if I start feeling bad," Wilma promised. Bad medically, anyway. She wasn't sure how much worse she could feel right now emotionally.

Paulton walked back around the bed and turned her attention to Buck. "Is the fever any lower?" Wilma asked as the lieutenant ran the scanner.

"Not yet. No higher, at least."

"It can't go much higher," Wilma pointed out.

"No, it can't." Paulton studied her still patient. "I'm not used to seeing him like this."

"Neither am I," Wilma agreed. Buck was so alive, such a strong personality. Almost never was he still. Most of the times when he was being treated for some injury or illness, he was the galaxy's worst patient, and Paulton normally had her hands full trying to get him to at least follow some semblance of instructions. "Did the first lab work show anything?" Wilma asked.

"Only that he has a very severe infection, which we already knew. His white count is through the roof. Dr. Goodfellow is trying to work out anything he can get on cultures, but those take longer."

Paulton left the room again, and Wilma sat there watching Buck. He was so deathly still. He was sweating, and his breathing was too fast, but beyond that, there were no signs of life at all. She sighed and squeezed his hand tightly again. "Buck, you need to get well," she said. "Keep fighting this thing. You've never given up on anything in your life; don't start now."

Sitting there, she recalled the other times he had been a patient. The Cygnus fever. The satyr bite. A few other injuries he had picked up on his away missions. And yes, there were also times she knew of that she could tell from his movements that he had been hurt in some way, but he had never mentioned it, never sought treatment, and assured her that he was fine. She could perfectly well picture him last night taking a shower, studying the shallow bite, maybe treating it with the simple first aid kit in his quarters, then dismissing it and heading back to her place with the food discs she had requested. The bruises would likewise be ignored, though the worst of them, on his right side, had gone clear down to bruise two ribs. She reached out now to touch that area. He never moved.

That climb. How had he possibly managed that injured, over 300 pounds between them that he had hauled nearly straight up the log?

She tried to picture the battle, even though she had missed it. The animal had charged Buck; that much she was sure of. She had jumped at the motion, startled, knocked a new part of the edge loose, and dropped into the pit as it gave way. She had screamed his name as she fell. Had he looked her way at that point instead of fully focusing on the oncoming threat? He had said later the animal knocked him clear over on impact, and he had had no soft mud to cushion the fall. The ground around the top of the pit was sprinkled liberally with medium and large rocks; no doubt those were responsible for his bruises. It had seemed like several seconds, nearly a minute, of sounds of a scuffle before Buck could get his weapon free and she had heard a shot. When in that had he been bitten? What was the animal that had bitten him?

She sighed again. Maybe Hawk could find the dead animal, although she had no doubt that it was the mud that was the main accelerator here. That mud had almost looked evil, and it had certainly felt it. She still shuddered remembering it coating her.

The conversations she intended to have with Buck once he was up to them played in her mind, and she rehearsed her scathing replies. However, she still couldn't be too mad at him. The whole incident with the pit remained her fault. She had been pushing the limit of safety in the first place as she studied the mud below, and then she had jumped a little closer when the animal burst from the woods.

He hadn't agreed, telling her not to be too hard on herself. Abruptly, she recalled the incident with the Vorvon, one that she was still too embarrassed to think of often. He had never once teased her about that or even brought it up later, and she had been glad to let the whole episode lie. His only words to her about her role had been those at first, when he said simply, "Forget it. It's over. Let's go home."

Dr. Goodfellow came back in a while later, stopping to check over Buck. "Why won't he wake up?" Wilma asked. That was scaring her as much as anything.

"We can only assume that that's part of the effect of whatever toxin this is, my dear," he said. "His fever has stopped rising at least, even if it isn't down yet. He's putting up a fight."

"He'd better," she said firmly.

The doctor came on around the bed to get closer to her. "Are you still feeling all right yourself?"

"Yes," she replied. At that moment, Paulton came in with a lunch tray. Wilma stared at it blankly. If Buck wouldn't even respond to a needle in his arm, he definitely wasn't going to be eating lunch.

Paulton interpreted the expression flawlessly. "This is for _you_ ," she said. "I doubt you ever had breakfast, either, and it's lunch time now. You have to keep your strength up."

"Yes, yes, my dear, you must eat," Dr. Goodfellow said.

"What about Buck?" she asked. "Are you giving him something in the IV? He needs his strength more than ever."

"He's getting a full nutrition supplement at regular intervals along with the fluids and medicine," Dr. Goodfellow replied.

Wilma, pinned down by both of the medical officers, started working on the lunch tray. She hadn't thought she was hungry, but she surprised herself. She finished all of it off, and shortly after Paulton had removed the tray, Hawk came briskly through the door.

Wilma stood up, even though she had to balance on the crutches. "Did you get it?" she asked eagerly.

"Yes." He held up the large bag he was carrying. "I have samples of both the mud and the spring as well as the remains of the animal." He headed for the lab next door with Dr. Goodfellow eagerly following. Wilma limped as far as the connecting window, curious about the animal but not wanting to leave Buck.

She watched Hawk remove the carefully sealed specimen jars of mud and water, those wrapped separately, and then the animal's body. Buck's laser shot had drilled straight through its torso, but he couldn't have been using full power. Full power would have disintegrated it. He must have been hoping to simply incapacitate it. The animal was larger than she remembered from her one brief glimpse. It probably weighed near 50 pounds itself. It was covered with black fur and had a vicious expression. Seeing it, she wasn't quite as quick to tell herself that it shouldn't have startled her. The fact remained that she had jumped the wrong direction, but this thing unexpectedly would have startled anyone. Dr. Goodfellow carefully put on gloves and then opened the mouth, looking at the teeth, before turning away from the animal to the jar containing the mud.

Hawk came back into the room. "Is he any better?" he asked, nodding toward Buck.

"No," Wilma said. "No worse, at least."

"He is strong. He will beat this, Wilma." Hawk walked over to the bed and put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "I climbed that log down to the mud and then back up myself. Even unhurt, it was an effort. I would not want to try it with someone on my back." He looked back to Wilma. "You should sit back down."

Her ankle was hurting too much for her to protest. She went back around to her chair, propped it up again, and replaced the cold packs. "I will stay with him if you wish," Hawk said. "To give you a break when you need it."

"No." Her refusal was definite. "I've got to stay here myself."

"I understand. I will return later to check on you both. Call if you need me." He left, and she was alone again with Buck. She reached out to feel his face. It was just as hot as it had been. Looking at the cold packs around her ankle, a thought struck her. She removed one, bent it into a slight curve, and then put it on his forehead.

Buck shifted slightly, a withdrawal so minute that if she hadn't been watching him closely anyway, she would have missed it. "Buck?" She gripped his shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. "Buck?"

Nothing. It had only been for a second, but he had moved, the first time she had seen any motion at all from him all day. She tried to take that as a positive sign and settled back into her worried vigil.

Paulton came back a time or two to check but always left them alone again. In mid afternoon, Dr. Goodfellow burst into the room, his characteristic enthusiasm fighting against worry. "I've got it!"

Wilma sat straight up. "The toxin? What is it?"

He deflated a little. "I'm not exactly sure. I've never seen anything like it, and neither has the computer. But I have isolated it. It was in the mud. Now, we just have to find the medicine that kills it. We're making progress, my dear girl."

Hurry, she thought silently. But the rest of the day was consumed with tests. The final answer was elusive. Even Crighton did not recognize this microorganism. Dr. Goodfellow was trying everything he could think of in the lab. "Of course, it may take more time to kill it," he said, surrounded by samples in dishes of the bug inoculated with this or that medicine. "I've labeled them all to monitor any change."

Late that night, Wilma stood, carefully balancing on the crutches, and, with a look at Buck, limped through the lab complex to the bathroom. She hated leaving him even briefly, but it was physically impossible to sit there next to him every second of the entire day. As she was returning through the main lab, she noticed Dr. Goodfellow. The elderly physician had lab work and computer results all around him and had obviously been hard at work until his own body had betrayed him. Now, he was sound asleep, pillowed on his console. Wilma smiled, thought of waking him, then left him alone. He had been trying as hard as any of them to help Buck today.

Returning to Buck's room, she noticed his right hand as she entered. The fingers suddenly flexed, reaching, probing. "I'm here, Buck," she called, wanting to reassure him but also glad to see any response. Other than that one moment earlier, he had been so frighteningly still today, as if he were already beyond their reach. She tried to hurry back to her seat, but it was still hard to navigate with the crutches, and her chair was wedged into a forest of monitors and medical equipment on the other side. The route took careful path-finding.

Buck's head turned slightly, and he made a sound so faint that she wasn't sure if it was a moan or a word. "I'm here," she repeated. Rounding the end of the bed, she reached out to give the sheet over his foot a pat, hoping that the contact would reach him. It didn't seem to. His hand was probing more widely now, searching along the sheet and the side of the bed, and as she finally arrived at the far side, he clearly, if softly and weakly, said her name. "Wilma."

"I'm here, Buck." She lowered herself back into her chair and grabbed hold of his right hand again, squeezing it between both of hers. "I'm right here."

"Wilma." He wasn't responding to her; it was still a call or a protest, she wasn't sure which. "No."

"It's all right, Buck." She let go one-handed and reached up to touch his hot cheek. He flinched away. His eyes were still closed, and his voice was still soft, but he was almost getting agitated now in a dragged-down-by-weakness fashion.

"Wilma! No. Not you, too."

She hesitated, trying to make some sense out of his fevered mumbling. Was he dreaming?

"No." His breathing had sped up a little more. "Not you, too. Already lost . . . everybody once. Can't . . . not you. . . not like Jennifer."

Wilma was stunned. Was this not just a fevered delirium but a recurrent nightmare, that he lost this century, lost her most especially, just as he had lost them? Could that have been his second dream night before last, the unpleasant one he had come so close to telling her? Had he actually come to care for her as he had Jennifer 500 years ago?

His head turned restlessly. "No. Not again. Mission . . . can't finish. . . all wrong. Freezing. . . nothing works. Have to get back. Can't lose Wilma." His fingers moved again in hers as if he was reaching, even though she held his hand. "Wilma. No!"

"Buck." Wilma tightened up her grip on his hand, trying to reach him. "Buck, I'm here." She stood, supporting herself on the side of the bed, and bent over to kiss his cheek. "I'm here. It's me, Wilma."

"Wilma . . . no!" His head turned from side to side again. "Have to get back. Get back to her." He shivered even though he was sweating. "So cold. Everything . . . cold. Can't die. Not again."

He was off on a mission in his dream, she realized, and like that one centuries ago, it was going badly wrong. He could feel the trap settling around him again, just like the first time, and again could feel himself freezing, for all he knew dying, leaving them all behind. In his current physical condition, she was afraid to let him hit the end of that dream. She quickly took the cold pack off his forehead; it might be helping the fever, but right now, it wasn't helping him. "Buck!" she called sharply. She switched out of reassurance into her command voice. "Buck! Listen to me. You already got back. You aren't on your mission anymore." She punched every word for emphasis. He stilled somewhat, and she continued. "You already returned. You're safe with us. You're safe. You aren't out on a mission, and you haven't lost us."

"Already . . . landed?" he asked.

"Yes. You already landed. It's okay. Everything went fine. You finished your mission, and you came back." She kissed him again and softened her tones a little, though not past what he was used to hearing from her. "Good to see you again, Buck. I've missed you, but you're back now."

"Wilma." For the first time, the name seemed to be addressing her, not worrying about her. She had successfully entered his dream. She pictured the two of them walking the halls of the Searcher after his return as they had so many times.

"I'm here. You are, too. We're all back on the Searcher now, and none of us are going anywhere. Not me and not you, either. You know, you promised me breakfast last time I talked to you. Want to go get breakfast together?"

He nodded. He had relaxed on the bed. "Good idea." His voice was fading.

"We'll have breakfast together, then. Soon as it's morning, but it's night now. Why don't you get some rest first? You've had a hard mission this last time out. I'll still be here to eat with you later."

"Okay." He stilled. His eyes had never opened.

"Good night, Buck." She waited until his breathing had evened out again, although it still wasn't back to his healthy baseline. Then she rested a hand on his cheek. He still had a high fever, but at least she had calmed him down, had kept him from reliving getting totally frozen, and just maybe, she had given him something more to look forward to, to hold on for. "We're going to have that breakfast," she promised him. "If you aren't up to it tomorrow, I'm still not letting you off the hook. One morning coming up, we _are_ going to have that breakfast. Meanwhile, you rest and get well."

She sat back down in her chair, and she eventually fell asleep herself watching him.


	4. Chapter 4

"Colonel." A voice in her ear, a hand on her shoulder. Wilma raised her head and blinked the world into focus. It was Paulton, come in the middle of the night to check on Buck. She held a pillow in her hands. "Here."

"Thanks," Wilma said. She felt exhausted, which was crazy. She had done next to nothing physical all day. She looked quickly over at Buck, who lay still as ever. "How's he doing?"

"The same. Fever is still extremely high. Hopefully Dr. Goodfellow will make some progress tomorrow on finding something to kill this bug. I noticed you took the cold pack back off of him."

"Yes. He had a dream a while ago. Didn't ever wake up, but he was moving and even talking some. He sounded horribly weak, but you could understand him if you leaned close. He seemed to be dreaming about his mission going wrong and him getting frozen for 500 years. I was afraid the cold pack was bothering him, and I didn't want him stuck at the moment reliving how he practically died, so I took it away." She looked up at Paulton. "That's progress, though, isn't it? He _was_ reacting to something, even if it was a bad dream. That's more than he's done all day."

Paulton looked thoughtful. She walked back around the bed to get less obstructed access to Buck on the other side and picked up his left hand. She applied pressure across his nail beds, starting lightly and slowly increasing it. It took several seconds of ramping up the effort before she got anything, but finally, he moved slightly, retreating from the touch. She released his hand, giving it an apologetic pat. "He's still pretty far under, but not as far as he was. That is a good sign, but I wish this fever would start coming down."

"Yes." Wilma reached out herself to feel his face again. She could tell no difference.

"I'll leave a note for Dr. Goodfellow that he is responding slightly now if you work at it, but I'll just let him sleep for the moment. Dr. Goodfellow, I mean. Captain Rogers, too. They could both use all the rest they can get after this day."

"That's for sure," Wilma agreed.

"So could you," Paulton said pointedly. "He's on several monitors, Colonel. If anything really changed in his condition for the worse, alarms would go off, and it would wake you up. I realize you're going to stay here, but get as much sleep as you can. Good night." Paulton turned and left.

Wilma picked up Buck's right hand, thinking of trying to get some response as Paulton had just done for confirmation, but she couldn't bring herself to hurt him, not even minorly. "Good night, Buck," she said again. Holding his hand tightly, she arranged the pillow carefully on the edge of his bed where she could have some support for her head and neck but wouldn't be pushing against his bruised right side. She quickly drifted back off to sleep herself.

The next person to wake her up was Hawk with a gentle but firm shake. She sat back away from the bed and looked up at her friend.

"Here," he said, holding out two food discs. "Breakfast."

"Is it morning? Thanks, Hawk." She reached out to touch Buck. His fever was still blazing. "I'm surprised Dr. Goodfellow and Paulton haven't been in here yet to check on him."

"They have. The doctor was just going back to his research as I arrived, and the lieutenant was about to go get you breakfast. I told her I had brought some."

"I can't believe they were in here with him, and I didn't even wake up." Wilma held up a food disc, studying it.

"Did I bring the wrong flavor?" Hawk asked with his subtle humor. "I thought this was your favorite." They only came in one flavor, a fact Buck had pointed out to her countless times. He always claimed they were tasteless. She had grown up with them as the main staple of life and wondered sometimes what he must be comparing them to, what it was that even he admitted he had never managed to recreate completely accurately in his cooking experiments.

Wilma smiled at Hawk, acknowledging the jab. "No, I was just thinking. The last time I talked to him - when he was awake and talking to me, too, I mean - he promised to bring me breakfast in the morning so I wouldn't have to work on navigating the lounge with these crutches until I'd had a little more practice with them." She suddenly wasn't hungry at all. "I was mad at him yesterday morning, Hawk. I thought at first, when I slept so late and he still hadn't come, that he had forgotten, and then I thought he was being lazy himself and was annoyed at him for that. I should have known something was wrong right away. He promised me that breakfast together, and he keeps his promises."

Hawk touched her shoulder lightly. "Yes. He keeps his promises. He will keep that one, Wilma. I am sure of it."

The morning trudged on, but a little later, Dr. Goodfellow burst into the lab, energizing everything along his route. "We might have something, Colonel!" he called.

She stood up eagerly, unable to take this sitting down. "Did you kill the organism?"

"No, not completely. Not yet. But there _is_ a change in one of my samples. The organism is fighting, but it definitely doesn't look as healthy on microscope as it did. It doesn't like that particular drug. It's been getting it since yesterday; hopefully given a longer period, it will completely die." He had a hypo in his hands and walked over to give Buck a shot. "Meanwhile, of course, we're going to start Buck on that medicine. He'll get regular doses of it in the IV from here on, but I'll give him a double one straight off now to start things working."

Dr. Goodfellow dropped the needle back into his pocket and rubbed his hands together, looking like a child in spite of his obvious age. "It's strange. That drug would not have been one of my first candidates. I was trying everything I could think of, but it was well down the list. Life is just so interesting, isn't it? Have you ever noticed that, Colonel? It can surprise you."

Wilma had to smile back at him. She couldn't help it. "Yes, I have noticed that. So how long should this take to start working with Buck?"

"Well, it had been working on the organism since yesterday afternoon, and there weren't any changes last night when I fell asleep, so it did take a little while to start showing effects. Hopefully we'll start to see a difference by the end of today." He took Buck's vitals again, then took hers and took his own for good measure. "I must write all this down. Yes, must write all this down. We've made a scientific and medical discovery here." He surged back into his lab.

By early evening, Buck's fever had dropped into the lower end of scale 12, still very high, and his breathing was a little easier, though still too fast. Wilma couldn't stand it anymore. For some reason, she had hit the limit of her one-sided conversations and encouragement. She wasn't about to leave, but she wanted him actually awake, wanted some reassurance by talking to him that he still was himself and was beginning to get better.

She looked around the room, ensuring that they were alone at the moment, and then gripped his shoulder. Every time Paulton or Dr. Goodfellow had done those tests today trying to reach him, he had responded a little more quickly, though the improvement was relative. It still took significant effort to get him to react, and he hadn't come close to waking up on his own yet. But for some reason, all at once, she couldn't keep waiting and dragging this out even more without at least trying to help him along a bit.

She shook him sharply. "Buck? Come on, wake up. Buck!" She dug her fingers in and increased the stimulation. It seemed to take forever, but finally, she saw his eyelids flutter. Encouraged, she shook him harder. "Buck. Wake up."

His eyes slowly opened. They looked half glazed and completely weak, weaker than she had ever seen them. She had meant to welcome him back first thing and let those be the words that greeted him, but she fell into analyzing those eyes, sorting out how much of Buck versus how much of the infection was there.

While she was trying to work that out, he beat her to speaking. After studying her for a moment, he looked around with a calm sort of bewilderment, and then he said, "Why am I in sick bay?"

His voice was hoarse and weak, nothing like his usual firm tones. "Why are you in sick bay?" She heard the sharpness in her tone, but she couldn't help it. Of all the questions, after everything, for him to ask that when he had known all along that he was hurt and simply hadn't shared full information with any of them. "You've got an infection from that bite on your arm," she continued. "The one you never told us about."

He shook his head slightly and flinched a little as he did so. "That bite was nothing. Barely even broke the skin. I cleaned it out last night."

All the stress of the last two days snapped. "Nothing!" Wilma leaned in closer, gripping both of his shoulders tightly now. "Buck Rogers, do you have _any_ idea what you put us all through? You nearly _died_. Dr. Goodfellow has been working like crazy in his lab trying to find the right medicine, Hawk had to go back to the planet for samples, and I've sat here for _days_ just watching you and wondering if I'd ever get to talk to you again. And you call all that _nothing_?"

He had closed his eyes halfway through that speech. "Wilma," he said, "I don't feel up to an argument right now. Can we reschedule it for later?"

She regained control of herself, remembering belatedly that he was still very sick. He wasn't in fact in any shape for a tirade like that. "I'm sorry," she said, dropping her voice back down to a conversational level. "How do you feel, Buck?"

He opened his eyes again. "Fuzzy. And everything hurts. Not just the bite. I feel like I got run over by a truck." He cleared his throat, but he still sounded hoarse and extremely weak.

Wilma picked up her own drink from its handy spot nearby. "Here," she said, holding the glass up to his lips. "Want a drink?"

He nodded and took a few swallows as she held his head up with her other hand behind it, helping him. "Thanks," he said softly. "Does anybody have an aspirin?"

"I'll get you a painkiller," she told him. She gathered her crutches, and he noticed.

"How's the ankle?"

"Starting to feel a little better. I've been staying off it and packing it in cold packs while watching you, and that's helping." She limped into the adjacent lab. Dr. Goodfellow was absent, but he came back in just as she was rooting in the medicine cabinet.

"Hello, my dear. What are you looking for?"

"Buck finally woke up, and he said everything was hurting. I was just trying to find something for him."

"Here, here, let me help you." The doctor prepared a syringe, and together they returned to the patient room. Buck lay absolutely still again, eyes closed, as he had for the last two days. "He's asleep again, I think. Just let him rest as much as he can, my dear. That's the best thing for him right now." Dr. Goodfellow stepped over and administered the shot, then patted Buck affectionately on the shoulder, not trying to wake him up, just unable to totally suppress his joy. "Welcome back, my boy," he said softly. "We've missed you. You behave yourself now and finish getting better."

He turned away. "I must finish my records on this organism. It's quite fascinating, you know. Never seen anything like this before, and now we know how to treat it, too. Maybe someone else someday can make use of all this. Let me know if you need me, Colonel, and I'll come check on him again in a little while."

He left, and Wilma limped back around to the far side of the bed, studying Buck. He hadn't twitched during that whole conversation. He was out again. All at once, she felt guilty. Dr. Goodfellow had at least greeted him, welcomed him back, and acted glad to see him, even if Buck had already phased out again on them. She herself had only given him a lecture delivered at a volume and intensity that must have reverberated if he had a headache, and he had said that _everything_ was hurting. With a fever like he still had, she was sure that he wasn't exaggerating; he had to feel lousy.

She put a hand on his shoulder. "Welcome back, Buck," she said. "I missed you. I'm glad you're starting to get better." He didn't answer. Next time he woke up, she promised herself, he really would hear them. She still had plenty that she wanted to say to him about his actions, but this wasn't the time. He truly wasn't up to it yet.

She sat back down in her chair and propped her ankle up again, resuming her vigil.


	5. Chapter 5

Buck slept deeply for the whole rest of that day and night, and Wilma didn't try to drag him back into consciousness again. Next time, she vowed, he would wake up at his own speed, not roughly shaken into it, and she would be gentler with him - for the moment. The argument, as he had suggested himself, could be rescheduled for later.

Those good intentions lasted her through the rest of another night sleeping with her pillow propped on the edge of his bed, and they vanished as soon as she opened her eyes early the next morning.

She had been soundly asleep herself, in spite of the less than ideal position, and it took a while for the subtle movements to climb to the top of her consciousness. While she was still hazily half asleep and debating whether she was dreaming or not, the sound of Buck's soft groan set off her senses at once. She opened her eyes and stared, disbelieving.

He had shifted over away from her, obviously trying to be surreptitious, and his back was turned to her at the moment as he tried to haul himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. He was having a hard time with it. He was clearly much weaker than he had thought, and all of the stiff and sore points of his body were protesting, too. He had his right upper arm braced against his side as he tried to reach over with that hand and unhook the IV from his bandaged left arm.

Wilma came upright a lot faster than he was. "Just what do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

He jumped at her voice and nearly lost his balance and toppled over on the bed. He collected himself and turned to grin at her, his old look of innocence that she never had trusted and sure wasn't believing now. "Good morning, Wilma," he said brightly.

Wilma firmly hauled herself to her feet and grabbed her crutches. Fortunately, she was getting the hang of them more by now, and she made decent if careful speed around the foot of the bed, arriving on the other side. She planted herself smack in front of him, a physical wall.

"No. Absolutely not. Wherever you're thinking of going, forget about it right now, Buck. And you certainly aren't going to unhook that IV. The only reason you're starting to improve now is that you're on a whole list of medicines." Propped up on the crutches, she freed her hands and gripped both of his upper arms firmly. He still felt hot, though better, and she moved her right hand to his forehead for a moment, judging. His fever was definitely a good bit lower now, though if she had had no previous baseline to compare it with, she still would have thought it was high. "You didn't answer my question. Just what do you think you're doing?"

He tried the smile again, but it wasn't working. She was glaring at him and did her best to look like she would be willing to stand there blocking the path to freedom for as long as it took reinforcements to come. That wasn't an act; she had no intentions of letting him off this bed yet. Not that he would get far if he did; he'd probably collapse in the floor before making it two steps across the room. Even mostly sitting up was an obvious effort for him.

"I'm waiting, Buck," she said firmly. "And you aren't going anywhere."

He sighed. "I woke up, and you were asleep over there. That reminded me. I think I remember you saying something earlier about sitting there for days. So I've been here a while?"

"This is the third day," she told him.

"Wow. Seems like I just went to sleep in my quarters last night. Anyway, I remembered that I had promised you breakfast. So. . ."

Wilma couldn't believe it. "Buck," she interrupted, "you are absolutely impossible. I don't know whether to hug you or try to knock some sense into your head."

"But I missed it."

"I'll forgive you. _Unless_ you try to get up right now. Listen to me, you stubborn man. You have been _critically_ ill. You just about died. You're still not in good shape. If you tried to get up, you'd only fall in the floor; I can tell you're having trouble even sitting up right now. About breakfast, I'll take a rain check, as you would put it. We'll do it later. Several days later. Right now, you are not going anywhere."

The door swished open behind her on the last sentence, and Paulton entered in time to hear her final words. The lieutenant immediately picked up speed, arriving to join Wilma in presenting a double wall to her patient. "No, you definitely aren't going anywhere. Lie back down, Captain Rogers."

"I was going to come back in a little while," he protested.

"No, you aren't, because you aren't going now." Wilma tapped her crutches. "I'm perfectly willing to stand here - on my sprained ankle, remember - all day as a road block if I have to."

He sighed again and finally leaned back against the pillow. Again, he flinched at the movement. "Can I have something for the pain, Paulton?" he asked.

She studied him. "I don't know. You might be easier to handle without it."

"Go get him something," Wilma said. "He is not going anywhere, period. This discussion is over, Buck."

"Somehow I doubt that," he responded. He let his eyes fall half closed. His breathing was faster again; she could tell he really was hurting. "What's wrong with my right side?"

"You could tell us better than we could tell you, but I think you must have landed on a sharp rock back when that animal knocked you over."

"I didn't hit it that hard," he countered.

"Tell that to the bruise. It goes clear down to the ribs. You're lucky you didn't fracture something. By the way, we do by now have a full and complete list of your injuries from that fight, so don't bother downplaying them. Why didn't you say something earlier, Buck? Back there on the planet, you should have brought it up."

"I had to get you out," he answered. She remembered that side of it again, and her anger drained away.

"I'm sorry, Buck."

"For what? I told you, that animal would have startled anybody. He startled me."

Paulton reentered the room with a hypo and gave him an injection. "You didn't slip anything extra into it, did you, Paulton?" he asked her.

"No, but I was tempted. I still might add a sedative next time. You are a very sick man still, and you are not getting up yet." She pulled her scanner out of her pocket and started to examine him. "Sit down, Colonel."

Wilma eyed Buck, then walked back around the foot of the bed, sitting down again. "Just remember, Buck, even on crutches, I think I'm faster than you at the moment. You wouldn't even make the door."

He grumbled something under his breath, but his brief rebellion clearly had worn him out. By the time Paulton had finished checking over everything, he had fallen asleep again.

Paulton looked at Wilma across the bed. "He's sure a lot less trouble when he's unconscious. Now I wonder why I wanted him to wake up."

"No, you don't," Wilma told her. "You might fool him, Paulton, but you can't fool me. It's awfully hard not to like him, isn't it?"

"Humph!" Paulton put her instruments up, then turned away and left the room.

Wilma sat there watching her friend and being grateful and exasperated in turn. And once again, she had chewed him out thoroughly instead of saying how glad she was to see him awake again, although this time he definitely had deserved the lecture. "Welcome back, Buck," she said softly. "What are we going to do with you the next few days while you're getting well?" Still asleep, he didn't answer.


	6. Chapter 6

A little while later, Hawk appeared, holding a couple of food discs. He was once again bringing her breakfast. Wilma held up a hand quickly, freezing him just inside the door, then stood as silently as she could and limped around the bed to join him. Buck was still sound asleep, but she was pretty sure that he could be woken up now by much less than the effort she had put into it that first time last night.

"Thanks, Hawk," she said quietly, taking the discs. She nodded toward Buck. "He's woken up twice now, and that last time, he remembered that he had promised me breakfast himself. He was trying to sneak out on me so he could go get some." Hawk shook his head, smiling at their friend. "Anyway, I really don't want him to see the food discs. It would just remind him of something he thinks he failed on."

"I understand," Hawk replied, his voice as soft as hers. "He seems like himself, then?"

"Yes and no. Mentally, he's all there, and he definitely was acting like himself this morning. But he's so weak he couldn't even manage to sit up all the way. I was blocking him, but he never even really started to make it off the bed, even before I got there. I don't know how in blazes he thought he was going to manage a walk down to the lounge and back. He's also said twice now that everything is hurting. Lying there practically motionless for a few days stiffened up all of his injuries. And he's still got a high fever. It's lower, but it's nowhere close to normal."

"It will take a few days to recover as sick as he has been," Hawk said.

"I know, but he's going to try to push it, and I'm not sure what we're going to do. We can't tie him to the bed." She sighed. "He really does seem to think he was barely hurt. He actually called that bite nothing, and he was surprised how much his bruised ribs are bothering him, didn't even connect that with his fight. I'm not sure at this point if he was hiding things at first because of me, or if he really didn't think it was worth mentioning, whether I'd been hurt or not."

"Or both," Hawk suggested. "Hopefully this several-day stretch in sick bay will impress upon him a little more strongly that he has to acknowledge anything at all that happens when we're out exploring unknown worlds."

"I hope so," Wilma agreed. She looked down at the food discs and suddenly became aware of exactly how long she had been down here. For the first time, she felt safe in leaving for a little while, reassured that he wasn't going to die while she was gone. "Hawk, I think I'll take you up on your offer earlier. Would you stay with him for an hour or so? I'll eat these, and I'd also like to take a shower and get clean clothes."

"I will not leave him," Hawk promised. He took a few steps toward the bed.

"Don't turn your back on him," Wilma reminded him.

"He will not escape from me," Hawk assured her.

With a final look at Buck, Wilma tucked the food discs into a pocket and exited sick bay. She limped back to her quarters, answering a few questions from crew members along the way how about Buck and herself were doing. Finally, she reached her cabin. It seemed eons, not just days, since she had last left it.

The shower was delightful. This time, well over 48 hours from injury, she let herself linger in the hot water. She soaped herself several times as if trying to remove the memory of the mud, and she recalled Buck's hands washing her hair. Finally, she shut the water off and got dressed in clean clothes. Feeling 1000% better, she settled down on her couch with food discs and her thoughts for company. Buck might be physically missing this breakfast, but there was no question he was here in her mind, and they were a private party of two, nobody else pushing in.

That dream. She hadn't mentioned to anyone that his nightmare two nights ago had involved losing her, losing this century like his former one. She was sure from her interactions with him awake so far that he didn't remember having it in the middle of the fever. He had clearly said that it seemed like he had just gone to sleep in his quarters the night before.

What she really wanted to know was whether that nightmare was the second dream he had mentioned, the one about her. Did he dream of losing her? Had she become as important as Jennifer? But Buck was in no condition at all for a discussion like that yet. She had to admit, she was afraid to bring it up herself, even later after he had improved. What if he said no? What if her hypothesis was only wishful thinking?

But he had been going to bring it up. Whatever that second dream was, he _had_ been going to tell her. She had clearly offered him a way out, and he had decided after a long pause for thought to go ahead and share it. Then Hawk had interrupted them, right at the wrong moment.

He hadn't mentioned it again. On the other hand, she had only talked to him twice briefly, and his physical condition at the moment was ample excuse. Even if her theory was correct, she was sure that he really did lack the energy mentally and physically to return to that topic. He was still too sick, and even if he did think he hadn't been truly injured back on the planet, there was no question that he felt lousy now. He couldn't be expected to bring it up again at the moment, anymore than she would herself. Revelation if he wished it would have to wait until much later in his recovery.

Did he want to tell her? Or was he glad of Hawk's arrival, glad of the excuse to dodge away again? He _had_ jumped up quickly to greet their friend, dropping the conversation at once.

But he had been worried physically about her. That alone could explain how glad he was to see Hawk come.

Wilma sighed. She was chasing herself in circles and getting nowhere. The answer was that she couldn't have an answer of any sort until his recovery was more advanced. She didn't like that one.

She still felt guilty about the mud, which Buck had only been in because of her, and that she hadn't noticed more what a hard time he was having on that climb out. But she was beginning to realize, as she'd told Hawk, that he probably genuinely hadn't realized the extent of his injuries himself. That didn't excuse her, or him, of course.

The content of his first dream suddenly returned to her. She thought of his mother tending to him when he wasn't feeling well, and she smiled. Buck as a boy had to have been almost irresistible.

What in the galaxy was ice cream?

Finishing her last food disc, she stood and limped out of the cabin. She was looking for either Twiki or Crighton, Twiki by choice even though Crighton had superior memory banks. Luck was with her; she found Twiki first.

"Twiki, can I ask you a question?"

The silver ambuquad responded with one of his own. "Bedebedebede. How's Buck?"

"He's doing better this morning. On the road to recovery, even if he's got a ways to go."

"Bedebedebede. Yippee!" Twiki had been down to visit Buck multiple times the last few days, but never when Buck was awake. "What's the question, Wilma?"

"Has Buck ever mentioned something called ice cream to you?"

The little robot paused, obviously checking internal memory. "Yes. Several times."

"Great. What is it and how do I get some?"

"Bedebedebede. Buck said it couldn't be made. He tried. He said we didn't have the right ingredients, and he only got annoyed at his experiments. That and something called chocolate were hopeless, he said. He finally gave up."

Wilma discarded that idea. If Buck had given up on something, it was truly hopeless. "Well, thanks anyway, Twiki. I just wanted to take him something to cheer him up, kind of a get-well present."

"Bedebedebede. He cooks for him better than we do."

"Yes, I know. And he always says it isn't quite right, even so. Sometimes I wonder exactly what it is he had back then that he's comparing to. I don't think food discs are bad at all, but I've eaten them all my life. Well, I'd better get back down there. If he wakes up, he'll wonder where I am." She hoped. Even though Hawk no doubt would tell him.

"Bedebedebede. I'll come, too."

"Just don't mention ice cream. No point in bringing it up if we can't get it." Together, she and Twiki walked through the halls heading for sick bay.

Buck was awake as they entered, but he was lying quietly in bed, not trying to sit up and apparently accepting his current limits for the moment. Hawk was beside the bed, and they were both watching something on the monitor. He looked over as the door swished open. "Hello, Wilma. Good to see you, Twiki."

"Bedebedebede. Good to see _you_ , Buck."

Wilma moved around to view the monitor. "What are you watching?"

"The galactic astrosled championships," Hawk told her. "They took place last week over several days, but we were both on missions, and we hadn't ever had time to catch up with it."

What a fantastic idea, she thought. Trust Hawk to come up with something to catch Buck's attention legitimately but which would keep him quietly in bed. While she had only worried about what to do with Buck, Hawk had come up with one of his deceptively simple solutions.

Dr. Goodfellow entered at that moment from the lab. "Hello, my dear boy. So glad to see you back with us again. Now, let's have a look at that arm, shall we?"

Buck flipped off the archived broadcast of the astrosled championships and turned his attention fully to the doctor. Wilma, Hawk, and Twiki also gathered around, making them a fairly tight huddle of five. Dr. Goodfellow carefully unbandaged Buck's left arm and started cleaning it out again. The red streaks were still present, though much less bright red, and the bite still looked bad enough that it even impressed Buck.

"Wow. I really thought he barely got me."

"The bite was shallow; that was an older animal of whatever species it was. His teeth were blunted," Dr. Goodfellow told him.

"I'd hate to meet a young one, then. That one was determined, even if he wasn't that sharp. He was actually trying to bite me in the throat. Had me down, and I got my arm up across my neck just in time." Wilma visibly shuddered at this first actual description of that battle. She could picture all too easily that vicious black creature on top of Buck, trying to chew its way to the jugular.

Buck noticed. "It's okay, Wilma. I beat him; it just took a minute."

Dr. Goodfellow began to apply a fresh bandage. "Now listen, my dear boy. Let this be a lesson to you, you hear? There are strange viruses and organisms on these planets you enjoy exploring so much. You must, absolutely _must_ , tell us any injuries you incur off on a mission. Even if you think it's not serious. The organism in that mud got into the bite, and it is obviously a very virulent specimen indeed."

"That bite didn't look anything like this that night. And I did clean it out myself when I took a shower."

"We didn't think it had looked infected then, but by the next morning, you were already in septic shock when Wilma found you," the doctor told him. "A little more delay in starting medical treatment, and you would have died. You came close to it anyway."

Wilma cringed, remembering her luxuriously long 10 hours of sleep and then her delay even longer while she was merely annoyed at Buck before she finally went looking for him. So close. Much too close.

Buck noticed her reaction. "I'll tell you all the next time something bites me," he promised. "Even if it barely does."

"You came very close to fracturing two ribs, too," Dr. Goodfellow continued. "You should have brought that up that evening, Buck."

"Now _that_ I really didn't realize," Buck protested.

Wilma stared at him. "You climbed up a 25-foot log with me on your back and with your side that bruised, and you didn't even realize it was hurt?" She was skeptical.

"No," he said definitely. "I knew the animal bit me. Most of the sore spots I've got now, I really didn't register yet then. I was just trying to get to you and then to get out."

"That climb was so hard for you," Wilma said. "I even noticed that myself. Not that it should have been easy, but you _were_ having trouble with it. You really couldn't tell you were hurt?"

"No," he repeated. "The climb was hard, but that just made me mad. It seemed like it was harder than it should have been. I was getting annoyed at myself."

Hawk shook his head. "I climbed the log down and back up myself, Buck. It was not easy, even uninjured, even without a second person. To have done that at all was impressive."

"I thought I should be doing it faster," Buck said.

"And you didn't see the bruises later on when you were taking a shower?" Wilma asked.

"I doubt they looked as obvious that night as they did the next morning, but no. I was in a hurry, because you were waiting, and you were hungry. The only thing I took any time for was to disinfect this arm. At least to try to." He studied the bandage which Dr. Goodfellow was finishing off.

Wilma sighed. "You ought to sit down," Buck told her. "You've been on that ankle long enough."

Speaking of long enough, this conversation was wearing him out. He was sagging back into the pillows, and his voice was noticeably weaker than when they had started the discussion. Wilma limped meekly back around the bed to resume her seat, and Dr. Goodfellow stepped away. "Now," he said briskly, "you need to rest, Buck. We'll leave you alone again. Come along, Twiki; I've got something you can help me on." The doctor, the robot, and Hawk left.

Buck turned his head to face Wilma. "I really didn't realize it all at first," he said. "Except the bite, and I thought that was minor."

She sighed. "You nearly died, Buck."

"Nearly doesn't count," he replied, trying for his old joking tone, but he sounded so much weaker than usual that she was suddenly scared all over again.

"Don't you dare make a joke out of the last few days, Buck Rogers. This was serious. Please, don't do it again. Next time you get hurt, as much as you do notice, _tell_ us. Promptly."

"I will," he promised. "And it wasn't your fault, you know."

"It was that mud that set off the infection. And you were in the mud because of me."

"No, you were there because of the animal. So we both have a grudge against him." His voice was fading, his eyes unwillingly falling shut. Wilma touched him on the cheek. He still had a fairly high fever.

"You rest, Buck. Rest and get better. We'll have plenty of time to talk later."

"Okay," he said. His eyes were totally shut now.

A thought struck her a minute later. "Oh, Buck?" She gave him a light shake, hating to rouse him, but she wasn't going to let the chance slip by yet again because of another lecture. "Buck."

"Hmm?" His weighted eyelids tried and failed to open.

"Welcome back," she said. "I've missed you, and I'm so glad you're getting better."

He smiled. No question that he heard her that time. Feeling a little better but still in a whirlwind of thought, Wilma sat there and watched him sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

Buck still slept much more than he was awake that day, though he would wake up regularly now. He seemed to have no stamina at all; a 5-minute casual conversation could drain him, and Wilma acknowledged again to herself that he was going to have to be more recovered before she could open a serious subject like the relationship between the two of them. Trouble was, the delay just gave her more and more time for second guessing and worry. For the rest of that day, they did nothing more demanding than watch a little of the galactic astrosled championships together, and even with that, he fell back asleep partway through a round once.

There was also a fairly steady stream of visitors. Hawk returned a few times, though he never stayed long. Twiki couldn't resist popping in for short moments. Even Devlin came by to check up on them briefly. Then the medical visits, of course. Paulton or Dr. Goodfellow would come in to check on Buck; his fever was at least steadily falling now. They also reexamined her ankle and seemed pleased at how the swelling was coming down. The ankle definitely was starting to feel better, though it still didn't want to take weight. She had tried surreptitiously once and reluctantly admitted to herself that she still needed the crutches.

Not only was Buck not well enough yet to really talk, but Wilma was realizing more that they couldn't have that talk here. There was too much traffic. She could just imagine Twiki, for instance, walking in at the wrong moment. Hawk had already unknowingly interrupted them that first time right when Buck had decided to go ahead and tell her the content of his second dream.

Around mid afternoon, Wilma took another short walk, stretching her legs and body a little. As she returned through the lab, she saw Dr. Goodfellow eagerly recording his data in the computer, no doubt enjoying again the discovery of and victory over this previously unknown microorganism.

She took one look through the window at Buck, who was still asleep, then limped over to the doctor. Nobody else was here at the moment. "Dr. Goodfellow, can I ask you a question?"

"Of course, of course, my dear. Never be afraid to ask a question." He looked up at her with his aged features and his bright, young eyes that were almost incongruous in the middle of them.

"How long do you think it's going to take Buck to get back on his feet? Can you come up with a rough estimate?"

"It's going to take him a few weeks to get back to full strength and working," Dr. Goodfellow replied.

Wilma cringed mentally and wondered how often the galactic astrosled championships were held and how many editions they had archived broadcasts of. Dr. Goodfellow smiled at her. "Yes, I don't think he's going to like that answer at all. He's going to be trying to misbehave on us, but really, this is going to take a while. He's been very sick."

"I know. He seems so weak, even though he's starting to get better. He hasn't got the energy to even talk much."

"That's because of the infection; septic shock will completely drain a person. This was as hard a battle as any physical one he's ever had, and it's going to take some time to get over. That really was a nasty little organism, too. I do think we can safely say today that he's out of danger, Colonel."

She agreed, and that was a relief. Today was really so much better than the last few days of cold fear. She tried her best to be thankful and to stamp down her impatience. "I know. What I really meant with that question, though, is when do you think he'll be up walking around a little, starting to feel better even if he can't work, getting to the point that he doesn't have to stay down here in sick bay all the time?"

Dr. Goodfellow considered. "Maybe four days," he said finally. "I agree; we're not going to be able to keep him cooped up here too long, but we're going to have to check on him regularly even then once he's back to staying in his quarters. He will try to push it too hard."

"Yes, he's good at that," Wilma agreed. "Thank you, Doctor." She limped back into Buck's room on her crutches.

It was that evening that he threw another impatience fit, rebelling against his current limits. She'd been waiting for the next one. Even weak, Buck was still Buck.

This one came as they had just finished eating supper. Paulton had brought them both a tray that time, soup for Buck, food discs for Wilma. He finished off most of the bowl, but he was staring at the hot liquid as if he were putting it on trial.

"It's not that bad, Buck," Wilma said. "At least she didn't bring you food discs."

"I feel sorry for you people sometimes," he replied. "You don't even know what chicken noodle soup is."

"What's a chicken?"

"Exactly. I rest my case." He turned the spoon lazily around the edge of the bowl. "And chocolate. And so much else."

Like ice cream, she thought, but she didn't mention it. She didn't want to remind him of his first dream he had told her, lest that remind him of his second dream that he hadn't told her yet. "Give this century credit, Buck. We do have starfighters."

He smiled slightly. "I know. The technology is a lot more advanced. I just . . . miss things sometimes." His eyes were going wistful again.

"I'm sure you do," she said sympathetically. He was visibly drooping a little bit again, tired out by the simple effort of eating, and she made the mistake of reaching for the rolling tray. "If you're done with that, I'll move it away, and you can get some more sleep."

His eyes ignited immediately. "I haven't even _done_ anything all day. This is stupid. It shouldn't be this bad."

Wilma put a hand on his arm. "Buck, you _have_ been doing something. You're getting better. And that's the most important thing you can be doing right now."

"I haven't been any kind of company for you, either. Hawk said you really had been staying down here just about full time for the last few days."

"Yes. I was scared, Buck. I was afraid I was going to lose you. I don't mind the company at all. If you're worried that I'm not doing other things, stop it. I'm right where I wanted to be. Besides, remember, I'm hurt myself. I wouldn't be working for a few days until I'm able to walk better again anyway."

He looked at her ankle, a flash of something that almost resembled guilt crossing his face. She was puzzled. If anything, she should be feeling guilty for _his_ current physical condition; without the mud and her rescue, he wouldn't have gotten this infection. He had nothing to blame himself for regarding her injury. "I want you to leave tonight," he said.

That hurt, sharply and quickly, like a knife. "You don't want me here?"

He tried to push his way to sitting up a little. "It's not that, but you need some rest yourself. In your own bed, not twisted up in a chair and halfway across mine. I woke up this morning, and it was making my neck hurt just watching you. Go back to your quarters, Wilma. You don't need to babysit me."

"Buck, it's _not_ babysitting; it's concern." All at once, he seemed to be retreating again, as he had so many times over the last months, dodging away just when they seemed to be coming close.

"I want you to go back to your quarters and get a good night's sleep tonight. Come back and visit tomorrow if you want another boring day of this."

"Buck, you are many things, but trust me, being with you is _never_ boring. Even when you're sick." A thought occurred to her. "You wouldn't be thinking of trying to get me out of here so you could make another shot at bringing me breakfast tomorrow, would you?"

His eyes fell away. "You _do_ need a good night's sleep in a real bed. That's what I was thinking."

"That's part of what you were thinking, at least." She sighed. He couldn't even really sit up still, but she could easily picture him trying to make another escape attempt tomorrow morning for a food disc run. "Buck, we're going to reschedule that breakfast you promised me. We'll set a definite day and get that firmly arranged, and then, I want you to promise me that you won't try it before."

"What's wrong with tomorrow?"

"It's too soon, and we both know it. Give yourself time to heal, Buck." She considered, weighing Dr. Goodfellow's prediction against Buck's impatience. "A week."

"A _week_? No way, Wilma. Two days, then."

She shook her head. "Four days."

"Three," he countered.

"All right, three. It's a deal." She extended her hand, and he shook it. His grip was still much weaker than his usual.

"You were thinking three all along," he said, watching her eyes.

She had been, deducting one for Rogers stubbornness from Dr. Goodfellow's estimate of four, but she didn't want to admit that to Buck. "Three days, Buck. We'll have that breakfast then, in my quarters and not here, just the two of us." Hopefully with much more energy and more privacy both. Maybe they could at least start to open the big topic then. "Now, promise me that you won't try to stage an escape and do it before then." How could he manage to look so stubborn and utterly drained at the same time? This conversation had already burned out all of his meager reserves at the moment. "Buck, I wouldn't get a good night's sleep in my quarters if I were worrying about you still. I'm not leaving until you promise me that you will stay here and at least try to follow instructions."

Their eyes locked. The verdict was debated for a moment, but the infection weighed in on her side. He was exhausted just from talking, and he knew it, even if he resented admitting it. "All right," he grumbled. "I promise. Now go on, Wilma. Take care of yourself tonight."

"I will. You do the same." She stood up on the crutches and moved the rolling tray over to the side of the room, then returned to his bed. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "Good night, Buck. I'll see you tomorrow. You keep working on getting well."

"Not much else to work on," he said, but he sounded half asleep already. "Night, Wilma."

With a final backward glance, she made herself leave sick bay.


	8. Chapter 8

Wilma woke up early on the third morning. She wasn't sure if she was anxious or eager or both, but she hadn't slept well. She wondered if Buck had slept well, if he was anticipating this breakfast as much as she was.

Buck hadn't been discharged from sick bay yet, but Wilma had no doubt that he would escape this morning and meet her. He had continued steady improvement over the last few days, and late yesterday afternoon, for the first time in nearly a week, he hadn't had a fever at all. Dr. Goodfellow had told him that they _might_ release him later today back to his quarters provided that he stayed stable in the meantime and that he promised to turn up at the lab once freed four times a day for an exam and meds.

The two of them hadn't come close to approaching a serious topic in those days. The traffic down there seemed almost diabolically designed to thwart any extended alone time, and while he was definitely recovering, he still didn't have anywhere near his usual energy. He had also seemed to her to be maintaining a distance, even when they were alone together. He continued to refuse to let her stay overnight. They had watched the astrosled championships but hadn't talked much. To her possibly overanalyzing eyes, he seemed more relaxed in conversation with Hawk and with Twiki than he did with her.

Was he simply waiting, storing up the topic for more strength and this chance at privacy? Or was he regretting the deal they had made? He had reminded her last night, promising he'd see her this morning.

Wilma got dressed and ready, then sat there waiting. Her ankle was continuing to improve, and yesterday, Dr. Goodfellow had let her switch to a cane. She was enjoying the easier motion, though it was still ginger enough that she had a definite limp and had to be careful with every step.

The door chime sounded, and she stood up eagerly to open it. Buck came in, carrying a tray. She watched him walk over to set it on the table. To people who knew him, he still didn't look entirely well. His color wasn't quite right, and his stride was simply flat-footed walking, lacking his easy grace and smooth energy. He was still stiff along the right side, too. Even so, he was doing better. So much better.

"Good morning," she said.

"Good morning," he answered. "Better late than never." He nodded toward the breakfast.

She studied the selections with a smile. He had brought her food discs, but for himself, he had a sort of breakfast roll that he liked, definitely one of his favorites among their complained-about menu. "Thank you, Buck." She sat down but first managed to touch him on the forehead on her way to the chair. He pulled away but not before she had a chance to verify that he had no fever.

"Quit it. I'm fine."

"Do they actually know where you are this morning?"

He shrugged. "I'm not a mind reader. I can't tell you what they know or don't know."

So he had slipped out on them. She smiled, imagining Paulton's resigned exasperation when she discovered her patient was missing. "Sit down, Buck, and let's have breakfast." They started eating, and she wasted the first minute trying to analyze the silence. He was sitting over there studying his roll intently and seemed poised on some edge himself.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

He rolled his eyes. "I'm feeling better, as I've told you and a half dozen other people regularly. None of you fully take my word for it so far, so why should you start now?" He sighed. "Dr. Goodfellow said at least another week until I can work again. A _week_ , Wilma. That's ridiculous."

He knew it wasn't, knew how much he still lacked as well as she did, but he had to protest just the same. That was simply Buck. She smiled, reassured at how much he was sounding like himself. "You know, Buck, I'm sure Dr. Goodfellow's estimate applied to running around planets and active work like you usually do. We're picking up the Capellan ambassador in two days to take him to that conference. You probably could go to the banquet that first night with the ship's officers. I doubt Dr. Goodfellow would object to that."

He shook his head. "You just want to see me in a dress uniform, just because you know I hate it. Forget it, Wilma."

Yes, she knew he hated that uniform, but he had her motives wrong. She didn't enjoy seeing him in it just to make him uncomfortable. She enjoyed her rare chances of seeing Buck in a dress uniform because he looked absolutely magnificent in it.

Suddenly, she dropped the casual talk and took the plunge. Even if the answer was negative, he was her best friend, and she treasured that. "Buck," she asked, "what was that second dream you had the night before that mission? If you still want to tell me, that is. You don't have to." She offered him the out, even though she didn't want to.

He studied his roll, but the pause for thought wasn't as long as it had been back on the planet. "I dream about my last mission back in the 20th century sometimes. How it all went wrong at the end and I got frozen, and then I wake up on the Draconia. Everything is different, and I don't know anyone or have any idea what's happening." Even waiting for the other shoe to drop, she felt a surge of sympathy, and she leaned over to put a hand on his arm. "I had that dream every night for the first few weeks in this time. Even now, I have it probably 2 or 3 times a month."

"I can't imagine what that was like," she said, truthfully. She was sure she wouldn't have handled what Buck had had thrown at him nearly as well.

He nodded. "I'd accepted dying. Back on the mission, I mean. I thought that was it, my number was up, the end, and I was resigned to that. But then realizing that I hadn't died, just that everybody else had. That was harder than facing death. Trying to adjust to living again with absolutely nothing familiar at first."

He stopped for a moment and took a few swallows of his drink. She waited. "But lately, the last few months, sometimes the dream is different. I dream that something goes wrong in _this_ century on a mission. Somehow, I wind up getting frozen again, only this time, I know what's coming. And I wake up again 500 years on down the road, and it's a whole new world. I've lost everything for the second time, and I have to adjust to that all over again. But . . ."

He paused again, and Wilma held still, forcing herself not to suggest, not to fill in the blank. She was pretty sure by now that her interpretation of his fevered mumblings was correct, but her hearing his nightmare in sick bay had been an involuntary sharing. That didn't count; he had had no choice then, no control. She couldn't hold that over him. He deserved to make the decision to tell her that dream for himself, when he was awake and able to.

"I've lost you," he finished finally. "Above everything else, I've lost you. Not only that, but I can't remember what you looked like."

She came to attention with a jolt. That part was a complete surprise. Of course, he had had Jennifer's picture in his shuttle and since then in his apartment and then his quarters on the Searcher; she had seen it often. He did not have a picture of her to carry. She had never had a holo-image made for him.

He misinterpreted her sharp reaction as disapproval or disappointment. "I don't think I would, Wilma. I hope I wouldn't. I don't think I could ever forget what you looked like, but that's how the dream goes. As hard as I try, in the dream, I can't recall your face. Everything else about you, but I can't make myself _see_ you."

"It's all right, Buck. I'm not blaming you for what's in a dream; I know you wouldn't forget what I looked like. At least I hope so." She paused and considered whether it was her turn now to confess herself that she also sometimes dreamed about losing him - never with the century-spanning freak mishap, usually just with him getting killed outright.

While she was debating whether to speak up, he went on. "I had that dream the night before that mission. It was so powerful, and then right after I left my quarters that morning on the way to breakfast, I was still thinking of it, and I met you. And that's why I asked you to come along with me. And then you got hurt."

All at once, a few puzzle pieces she hadn't even suspected snapped together. That fleeting look of guilt he had in sick bay when talking about her ankle. His being so hyperfocused on rescuing her that he really hadn't realized what his own body was telling him on that climb about his own injuries. "Wait a minute," she protested. "You blame yourself for me getting injured because you talked me into going on the mission along with you?"

"You wouldn't have been down there otherwise," he said.

She sighed. "Buck, we don't know the future. I _chose_ to go along with you. I was glad to. You aren't responsible at all for me getting hurt; that credit goes to the animal and partly to me being careless. I was too close to the edge, and then I landed wrong when I fell in."

"But it made me realize. . ." He fell into silence again.

"Made you realize what, Buck?" she asked, hoping for those three magical words. She was suspecting and hoping more and more as this conversation progressed, but she hadn't yet actually heard them.

He gave her three entirely different words. "I was selfish."

" _What_?" Buck had many attributes, but she didn't think he had a selfish bone in his body.

"I . . . it's not just your ankle. When you got hurt, I realized what I had been actually wishing for. Well, not wishing for, but choosing. If something _had_ gone wrong on the flight, if my dream came true, then by asking you to come with me, I was forcing you into that, too. I've _been_ there, Wilma. Having to adjust to it all, trying to keep going on when I was just reeling at first from the shock. How hard it was. I was wishing that on you, knowing full well what it was like. Just so I wouldn't have lost you. And that was selfish." He looked straight at her. "I'm sorry, Wilma."

Wilma clenched her teeth, wondering where to possibly start unsnarling his feelings over that. While her mind was still trying to analyze and strategize, her heart abruptly took over. She reached over to grip both of his arms tightly.

"You listen to me, Buck Rogers. If you _ever_ get frozen for 500 years again, I'd _want_ to be with you. It wouldn't be like that first time was for you or for me, either, because we'd still have each other. If I knew, absolutely knew, it would happen, I'd want to go with you that much more. I'd rather lose everything else than lose you. I can't imagine losing you." She blinked back tears, thinking again how frighteningly close she had come to doing just that in this last week. "Buck, I love you."


	9. Chapter 9

Buck's eyes widened, but before he could say anything, the com link chimed over on the wall. Wilma cheerfully could have shot it if she had had her weapon with her at that moment. Buck straightened up and half smiled, looking toward the wall. Wilma released her grip on his arms, but she refused to get up.

"Aren't you going to answer that?" he said.

"They can leave a message," she grumbled. She was still off duty because of her ankle, and nothing she could think of right now took priority over this conversation. The mood of the moment was nicely shattered, though, even if she tried to ignore that persistent chime. She wondered, as she had once or twice before, if the universe was in conspiracy against her.

Paulton's voice replaced the chime. "Colonel? This is Lieutenant Paulton." Buck rolled his eyes and succeeded in looking both proud and innocent at the same time. He was rubbing his left arm lightly over the bandage, and Wilma realized suddenly that she had been gripping him straight across the bite a minute ago. Had she been hurting him, even while she told him she loved him?

Was anything ever going to go right? Were they doomed to a perpetual cycle of dodging, joking, and external interruptions, spiced occasionally with herself not quite doing things right? All her life, she had dreaded not quite doing things right.

Paulton continued. "Captain Rogers is missing this morning. He hasn't had his medicine yet, and he certainly doesn't need to start skipping doses on it. If you happen to see him, please drag him back down here." The message snapped off.

Buck wore a full smile now. " _Great_ timing, Paulton," he said, his lighthearted tone just as she had heard it so often, poking fun at a situation, refusing to take life too seriously. Wilma clenched her teeth, but she didn't reply. Was he simply going to duck away again behind humor? She wouldn't prompt him; she had already laid her soul bare. There was nothing left for her to say. Whatever came next _had_ to come from him, but she hoped that a joke wasn't his final answer.

In the next moment, the smile faded, and to her relief, he picked the thread of the conversation back up himself. "When I lost Jennifer, I . . . that shook me up almost as much as adapting to the new century. That was going to be my last mission. She was always worried every time I'd go off on some mission, and they used me a lot on test flying experimental ships. Not deep space exploration like Ranger before that once, but I had my share of living on the edge in flying. She was always afraid something would happen. I had dinner with her that last night, and I promised her that this time was it. I told her we'd never be separated again." He looked down at his hands. "I broke that promise."

She couldn't help responding there. "Buck, it wasn't your fault. It's not like you meant to."

"I know, but still . . . I loved her, and I couldn't help feeling like I'd let her down. Losing everybody was a jolt, my family, too, and I missed all of them more than I could say, but she was the one I'd promised that I'd never go away again, and I broke that." His eyes were moist suddenly. "I'd dream about that, too. I hate breaking promises."

"I know," she said. "You've never broken one that you were able to keep, Buck."

"Yeah. Technicalities. The promise _was_ broken, however you line the fault out. And then there was you." She practically held her breath, waiting. "You stood out a mile from the others from the first in this century, but I just couldn't deal with it. I felt like I was betraying Jennifer even for thinking of the possibility of starting something serious. So I tried to pretend that nothing really mattered too much."

That string of women that he'd pursued superficially, she thought again. Even at the time, even while it hurt her, she had realized that it was superficial.

"But I couldn't keep my distance too much," he continued. "And you . . . we could do things together. Things I couldn't with Jennifer, and that made me feel guilty again. You were a partner and a true friend. And as much as I tried to leave it at that, I'd dream sometimes. Then the last months, like I said, I started dreaming of losing you. I'd wake up in a cold sweat from those dreams." He reached across and gripped her hands. "I love you, too, Wilma. I'm not sure when you made it past my defenses, but you did. But I wasn't sure how you really felt. You'd joke with me, but it never went past that."

"Buck." She slid her chair over closer to his side and reached for him. The kiss might have started as exploratory, but it hit ocean waves crashing on the shore quickly. Finally, reluctantly, she pulled away. "I wanted more with you from the first, too. As arrogant and annoying as you were . . ."

He chuckled. "Thanks."

"I still couldn't get you out of my mind. It just took me a long time to admit it to myself, too." She embraced him tightly, leaning in for another kiss, but she felt him flinch a little. She was squeezing him straight across his bruised ribs. She lightened up her grip. "You need to get back down to sick bay."

"Dr. Goodfellow said he'd release me today," he protested.

"He said he _might_ release you _this afternoon._ And you do need the medicine." She kissed him again. "Buck, I want you to know something. If a mission ever goes wrong, I do hope I'm with you. But if I'm not, I will _never_ think that you let me down. I'm sure Jennifer didn't, either. Grief isn't the same as blame."

"Could I have . . ." He hesitated.

"Anything. Within reason," she quickly modified, seeing the humor awaken in his eyes. She did love his sense of humor, even if it had been used as a dodge on occasion.

"A picture of you," he finished. "To carry with me."

"Yes, but I want one of you, too. Not that I could ever forget you." She reached for her cane and stood up. "Come on, Buck. We'll have more time for the two of us later."

"How much?" he wondered. "It could all end again. It did once for me."

"I don't know, but let's just appreciate every minute we do have instead of trying to count it." She heard her words suddenly and smiled herself. "I can't believe I said that; I'm the worst in the universe at counting time and worrying about not using every second of it. You've changed me, Buck, in good ways."

"You've changed me, too," he said. He stood up and embraced her again, still a little stiffly, being considerate of his side as well as her ankle, but they held each other up nicely. He was the one to break the kiss that time finally. "Well, since you aren't going to let me ignore Paulton, I guess we'd better get back down there. Watch her eyes, Wilma. She has this wonderful exasperated eye roll, and when she's really worked up, she'll cross her arms, too."

She was laughing as she followed him, but she was also holding his hand in promise, and his return pressure was just as strong as hers.


End file.
